T. Brookes Group - Business Services

8 Tips to Start Your Day Feeling Happy and Productive

How we greet the morning has tremendous impact on our productivity and pleasure all day long. Here are eight tips for a good start.

No alarm. Waking up to an alarm breaks into natural sleep cycles and makes us feel groggy. Plenty of sleep helps us to awake naturally before the alarm goes off. 

Stretch. Stretch before breakfast. Simple, short exercises that increase blood flow, condition muscles and release good-feeling chemicals will provide a day-long boost.

Sit still. Take a few minutes to sit still and think of nothing. Let any thoughts that pop into your head pass through the mind and away without censure. Stillness gives power and focus to the day.

Gratitude. Gratitude changes everything. Write down five things that you like. Each morning, write five different things. Do this again before bed to ensure a restful sleep.

Food and music. As your Mom said, eat a nutritious breakfast. Follow it with quality vitamins. Play gentle music to get your brain and your spirit into gear.

No news. Starting the day with bad news is discouraging. Commercials make us dissatisfied with life, so avoid them morning and night, the times we’re most susceptible to influence.

Agenda. Ten minutes spent making a prioritized agenda helps to reduce vague, overshadowing anxiety. Try to do this the night before.

Ritual. A morning ritual, always the same elements in the same order, streamlines activities and ensures against forgotten tasks.

Avoid Tempting Distractions Working At Home

Have a purpose: Any job is made easier by an overriding sense of purpose. Visualize the successful completion of a task to blind yourself to tempting distractions. Create a vivid mental movie of the big moment when the job is done.

Follow an agenda: Place outstanding tasks in a priority sequence. Remember that urgent things are not always the most important. Follow the agenda as closely as possible, but stay flexible.

Box your time: Time-boxing is a useful technique popularized by software developers. Break long tasks into segments. Thirty-minute stretches work well. Rather than going at each separate job until it’s completed, revolve through the various activities in half-hour boxes.

Prepare the tools: Before beginning a task, gather everything you’ll need. This saves jumping up and down for things that aren’t at hand when required.

Take meaningful breaks: When you take a break, get away from the work entirely for at least ten minutes.

Drink water: Have a bottle of water handy at your desk, and sip continually. Good hydration has a powerful effect on focus and speed of work.

Use quiet times: When others are about and having fun, it’s difficult not to join in. Make good use of the hours when family members are away or occupied in their own work.

 

The Basics of a Workspace

The room

Avoid glare from windows or overhead lights. Close the window shades to stop light from hitting your computer screen, and position your desk away from direct, glaring lights. Make sure the room has proper air circulation.

Your computer

Your monitor should be at arm's length from your body with the top of the monitor at eye level so you are looking slightly down when you are working. Many new flat-screen monitors are easily adjustable. When typing, your arms should be positioned so that your wrists are not bent when you type. When using a mouse, make sure it's not too high or it will strain your wrist. Use a mouse mat with a pad as support.

Your desk and chair

Adjust your chair so your back is well supported, from top to bottom. Use a lumbar support, if you need one. Sit upright and don't slouch. When you are typing, your elbows should be at 90 degrees or slightly less. Your feet should reach the floor (use a footrest, if needed) and your thighs should be parallel to the floor with your knees bent 90 degrees.

Your eyes

Look away from the screen from time to time to rest your eyes, and make sure the font size you use is big enough.

Tips for Working at Home Successfully

Your office space

It's important to divide your working space from the rest of your home as much as possible. Ideally, you will have an office in a separate room, but if that's not possible, try to dedicate within a room a space that's just for business, perhaps using a screen or divider to separate your desk from the rest of the room.

If you live in a noisy house, try to find somewhere quiet where you can talk on the phone, otherwise you will find it difficult to project a professional image.

Your 'office hours'

If you can, keep to strict office hours rather than let your work time overflow into your personal time. Doing this will help present a professional image to your clients or employer and also stop your workplace stresses from interfering with your private life. Imagine 'shutting the door' on work at the end of the day and not going back until you are due to start again.

Your family and friends

Sometimes, people believe that if you're working at home, they can interrupt you whenever they like. Tell your loved ones that even though you are at home, you are working and that they should not disturb you.

Who Wants To Be An Entrepreneur? 12 Qualities Of Success | Manta Small Business Center

If you are an entrepreneur, or want to be, then here is a list of important characteristics to measure yourself against. Anyone can be a successful entrepreneur. It takes hard work, determination and unwavering persistence to name just a few. Here are the essential entrepreneurial qualities that anyone who is interested in great success should work on:

Who Wants To Be An Entrepreneur? 12 Qualities Of Success | Manta Small Business Center

Staying Committed in Your Business

By Warren Miller

Starting a business is easy. Anyone can start one. Keeping motivated and committed is what sustains it and keeps you ahead of the pack. It can be tough to do, especially when things are not going so well. Following are some tips to help you in your quest to keep committed:

Staying Committed to Your Business Plan | Manta Small Business Center.

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THE OFFICE EXTENSION based in Smyrna, Tennessee, offers administrative, event planning, office organization, client support and marketing services to small business owners. Services may be purchased for as many or as few hours a month as needed without the taxes, regulations, and other costs and hassles that go along with hiring an employee.